Publishing Portals

I think it's finally going to happen.  I am going to be able to publish my novel.  The novel I've been working on for the last 12 years. As I think back on how it began, I can't help but laugh. And marvel. I started it in seventh grade with dreams of turning it into a movie. In eighth grade, though it wasn't really finished, I started making it into a screen play. I'm not sure when it began to be the book it is now, but I do know that sometime between junior high and now, I decided that the entire thing was so cheesy it wasn't funny, and that it needed to just be rewritten. While I was deciding that, I wrote the second novel in the series, which I entitled "The Man in the Attic". I finished that book. And have since started completely over, as it was really cheesy as well.

Am I doomed to write every novel twice?

But now, I've finished Portals for the second time, oddly enough the last line is the same as the original, at least I had that right, and I'm on the editing stage. I and two of my friends sat on the couch for five hours a few days ago and got through the Prologue. Which was only 490 words long. It ended up being 587 words long by the end of the night. We went through it word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, trying to make sure it was exactly what I wanted. It is much better than it was before, but I had no idea that this process would take quite as long as it did.  I suppose it didn't help that we are three best friends and prone to go on tangents.

The knowledge that I've made it this far is incredible. My dream of being published is details and money away.